Day 63: Châtel is a monster!

1 Sep 2011

By David Scorer

Day 63: The mountain bike playground of Châtel. Even on it’s own Châtel stands out at a major player in bike parks scene. But as part of the whole Portes du Soleil mountain bike mecca it has to be considered as one of the leading parks in Europe. But we expected something big. Any park than can host an event like the Châtel Mountain Style earlier this year must have something about it!

As I said before, the bike park is actually 6km down the road from Châtel at Pre-La-Joux. It would be a pain to ride, so drive there (stacks of free parking) or take the regular bus service that is equipped with bike racks on the back. There is one chairlift from the bottom taking you up 360m to a small gathering of huts and restaurants (not really sure it’s a town) called Plaine Dranse. Here you will find the La Fantaski restaurant which was clearly the popular hangout of riders for drinks, snacks and lunch. Most trails go down from here but there is a second chairlift up to the peak another 300m higher up. There are green, blue, red and black graded trails, and the greens are not just fire-roads, they are maintained machine-built rolling berms with optional jumps and drops which might be graded higher elsewhere. There is stacks of northshore here, with dedicated ‘shore’ trails as you get close to the bottom of the main lift. Every drop or jump is marked with neat little triangular flags positioned one either side of the takeoff lip and landing lip on the tabletops. All the trails are very well signposted, and with trail maps pinned to a board at the top of each lift you can get away without having to carry your own.

Given that is was my first day back after my huge wreck, our first trail of the day was actually the green ‘Panoramic’ trail along the ridge line, with views looking out over the back towards Lindaret and Avoriaz. Plenty of other inviting single-track is obvious on these hillsides – not strictly part of Châtel bike park but still worth investigating and will be part of any exploration of the wider Portes du Soleil during your stay. There are just so many trails here (just at Châtel alone) it is impossible to cover them all in one day, and get photos at the same time. The red ‘Vorachatak is a tight steep singletrack off the very top, very narrow and one of the favorites of the day. And Komatrautrail was also great fun – more technical and rooty than the machine-built ‘freeways’ running down under the lifts. Everywhere you look you will find big hit gap jumps, huge drop offs, fast berms and tight steep single-track – enough for any interest and any standard of rider. It is a monster!

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